Delvers to Grow - fast character building for Dungeon Fantasy RPG and GURPS DF

[Douglas Cole]

The Last Pitch​

The Kickstarter for Delvers to Grow is ending at 9 pm Central Time on Tuesday, May 25. It has funded, and the next steps are stretch goals for more included content with backer pledges. Delvers to Grow offers character generation for the Dungeon Fantasy RPG with two important features:

• It covers lower power levels than the near-epic characters provided in the Dungeon Fantasy RPG boxed set: If you like "zero to hero" play, this is your book
• It enables getting to the table fast. It usually takes people 5 to 15 minutes from opening the book to "ready to start play."
• It includes an adventure tuned for the power levels covered in the books. Make characters, start play. Right then.

It is, and I say this without hesitation, the greatest recruiting tool for Powered by GURPS games like the Dungeon Fantasy RPG that has ever been created.

One blind-tester took it to their favorite local game store, and ran an amazing pick-up game on the fly.

With the Dungeon Fantasy RPG. He was asked back to run more.

If you've wanted to try a Powered by GURPS game, if you love the Dungeon Fantasy RPG but can't get folks to make characters because it takes too long, if you prefer starting as a lower-tier delver and working your way up to epic during play...Delvers to Grow is the book for you.

 

[uzirath]

With six hours to go, the Delvers to Grow campaign is over $30K (more than $8K over the goal). I'm still hoping another 163 backers come out of the woodwork to get us to the 600 backer stretch goal.

I'll talk up one more bit that I like. This sidebar in the section on disadvantages:

One of the things I like about the way GURPS/DFRPG handles attributes is that you can decouple secondary from primary attributes. Typically, as you buy up your IQ, your Perception (Per) and Will go up at the same rate. But, if you want to play a brilliant but unobservant wizard, you can lower your Per. Similarly, you can be a weak-willed cleric or a surprisingly speedy couch potato.

I assumed this sort of thing would be reserved for "advanced character building," but Kevin Smyth found an elegant way to include it in his DtG section. This has the added benefit of providing a way that someon

e can replace a disadvantage from a package with lowered secondary characteristics. For example, maybe I like the basic idea of being disinherited but I'm not keen on playing a lech. Great. Replace lecherousness with three levels of Weak Will. This still fits the concept—the character was at the brothel because of peer pressure or temptation, not because they're especially lecherous—and maintains the point balance.

Would I do this as a first-time player? Probably not... I might not yet be clear on what a secondary characteristic is. But after my first game or two, I'm definitely ready to start taking the training wheels off. This book provides such a graceful on-ramp to the system. Even as an experienced player who knows most of these traits well, these packages help me quickly refine a character concept. I can't wait to get a couple of print copies to pass around my gaming table.